I’m sure Kellie Leitch was desperately delighted when her campaign manager, the Prince of Darkness Nick Kouvalis, suggested a way to boost her profile.
And make her the Cinderella of the Con leadership campaign.
By slipping on the slipper of bigotry again, and proposing to screen immigrants for “anti-Canadian values.”
But although it has raised Leitch’s profile, it hasn’t quite made her the Cinderella she was hoping to become.
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Tag: kellie leitch
Politics and its Discontents: She Asked For It
Kellie Leitch has made her ‘values test’ a central issue in her leadership campaign, and Evan Solomon, now host of CTV’s Question Period, asked a logical question about her politics of division and exclusion. However, as you will see, Leitch clearly la…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner
Given the viscerally-stimulating ort that Kellie Leitch has lovingly lobbed to a certain core of the Conservative Party’s constituency, it might perhaps be timely to remind the leadership hopeful of the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for.” And despite a new poll that suggests many Canadians favour screening would-be immigrants for ‘anti-Canadian’ values, she would be well-advised to proceed with extreme caution.
As The Mound of Sound suggests, she should start by looking closer to home. Consider, for example, something that recently appeared in Press Progress, which included a clarification of what Leitch means when she advocates screening newcomers:
“Screening potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values that include intolerance towards other religions, cultures and sexual orientations, violent and/or misogynist behaviour and/or a lack of acceptance of our Canadian tradition of personal and economic freedoms is a policy proposal that I feel very strongly about.”
While I encourage you to read the entire article, here are a few of the things Press Progress pointed out about some of the Conservatives within Leitch’s political ambit:
Leitch says personal “freedom” is not only a Canadian value – it’s a proud “Canadian tradition.”
A proud and avid anti-abortionist, Kenney apparently doesn’t hold with some personal freedoms:
Kenney even tried to suppress a women’s group from spreading awareness about abortion rights on campus, claiming that if they allowed women to talk abortion, there would be no stopping the Ku Klux Klan, pedophiles or the Church of Satan from peddling their ideas too.
So much for freedom.
Another worthy addition to what could be a lengthy rogue’s gallery would be fellow-traveller Candice Bergen:
Leitch vows she won’t let anyone in who doesn’t believe in “equality of opportunity.”
If that’s true, then being a good Canadian mean supporting an affordable national childcare program too, right?
Two big barriers preventing kids from starting off life on an equal footing are skyrocketing child care costs and lack of affordable child care spaces.
Unfortunately, Conservative MP Candice Bergen once said she opposes child care (like the rest of her party) because it is her “core belief” that “big, huge government-run daycares” should not “dictate to families how to address their child care needs” – a set of talking points that perfectly mirrors Republican Tea Party arguments opposing Obamacare.
Now that doesn’t sound very Canadian, does it?
An indisputable Canadian value is acceptance of a wide range range of values and orientations. A test for oppositional values might send someone like Brad Trost fleeing.
This spring, Trost reacted to his party’s decision to drop its opposition to same-sex marriage in favour of a neutral position on the question by publicly announcing “gay marriage is wrong”:
“I will say homosexual marriage, gay marriage is wrong. I’ll be public about it … The language of equality and comparisons, to me that’s socialist language, the way they do it. The same way they talk about equality of income where they want a tax from the rich to bring them down to the level of the poor. So I completely reject the underlying philosophy behind this.”
Personally, I am waiting for a reporter to ask Leitch whether she would apply her screening criteria to those fundamentalist Christians (who incidentally comprise a large cadre of the party’s base support) wishing to come to Canada.
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Never-Ending Shame of Canada’s Trump Kellie Leitch
It’s hard to believe, it’s like a scene from a bad horror movie, or a return to Harperland,
But it seems Kellie Leitch is determined to become Canada’s Donald Trump.
For although her dog-whistle plan to screen immigrants for “anti-Canadian values” has been roundly condemned.
She just doesn’t care.
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Northern Reflections: On Waves Of Ignorance
Kellie Leitch is doing to the Conservative Party what Donald Trump has done to the Republican Party — splitting it right down the middle. Michael Den Tandt writes:
Apparently, as far as Team Leitch is concerned, a new wind is blowing — a nativist wind, ripe for the harvest. Last week it was reported that a Leitch campaign survey had posed this question: “Should the Canadian government screen potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values as part of its normal screening for refugees and landed immigr
“Canadians can expect to hear more, not less from me, on this topic in the coming months,” she said Friday.
There has always been political hay to be made by stoking fear of “the other.” And it’s paying off for Leitch:
Why did Leitch decide to go all-in? One objective seems plain: donations. Last month it emerged she’s taken an early but significant lead in fundraising, accounting for about 60 per cent of the $376,377 raised by three then-declared leadership aspirants (Leitch, Chong, Bernier) in the second quarter, The Canadian Press reported.
Leitch is reaping profits. The party, however, isn’t doing so well:
The takeaway is this: Leitch doesn’t care about upending the pluralist tradition of her party, or about how her latest gambit will surely be used by the Liberals to paint all Tories as xenophobes. Nor does she care about the evident risks in broaching a culture war, witness the career-ending losses of Harper last year and Quebec premier Pauline Marois in 2014. Leitch cares, it seems, about filling her campaign coffers.
She’s taken a page from Donald Trump’s playbook. Clearly she hopes to ride to power on waves of ignorance.
Image: nationalpost.com
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Kellie Leitch’s Canada?
Thanks to Alison for this:Meanwhile, Leitch’s colleagues don’t appear to favour her approach. Deepak Obhrai, who filed his own leadership candidacy papers yesterday, had this to say:What I am really concerned about is the tone and the message this ques…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Will the Con Leadership Race Help Destroy the Harper Party?
Yesterday I ran a Michael Harris column that looked at the Cons apparent death wish.
And how they seemed unable to escape the deathly legacy of Stephen Harper.
And I also wondered how Rona Ambrose’s decision to criticize Kellie Leitch for her demagogic proposal to screen immigrants for “anti-Canadian values,”would affect Ambrose’s leadership.
And her ability to hold her party together.
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Montreal Simon: Michael Harris On the Death Wish of the Harper Party
When Rona Ambrose was named interim leader of the Cons, I predicted that the hissing ghosts of the Harper Party would come back to haunt her.
And turn her job into a nightmare.
And sure enough now they have.
With Kellie Leitch dredging up the corpse of her infamous cultural barbarism campaign.
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Montreal Simon: Kellie Leitch and the Anti-Canadian Cons
In my last post I looked at how Kellie Leitch was discovered discreetly cooking up a new/nouveau batch of her foul cultural barbarism brew.
By stirring up the idea that immigrants and refugees should be screened for “anti-Canadian values.”
Even though Leitch wouldn’t know a Canadian value if it flew up like a bat and bit her on the nose.
But if you thought she was sorry for having been caught in the act of trying to bubble up bigotry again, and might blubber like she did a few months ago.
You’d be wrong.
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Montreal Simon: Kellie Leitch and the Return of the Barbarian Nightmare
One might be excused for believing that Kellie Leitch would have learned her lesson.
She herself wanted us to believe that she was sorry for her foul cultural barbarism campaign, and her infamous snitch line.
Or so she blubbered.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this since the campaign took place and if I could go back in time, which I can’t, I would change things,” Leitch said. “I would not have made that announcement that day.
But sadly it seems that old habits die hard.
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Montreal Simon: Kellie Leitch and the Return of the Barbarian Nightmare
One might be excused for believing that Kellie Leitch would have learned her lesson. She herself wanted us to believe that she was sorry for her foul cultural barbarism campaign, and her infamous snitch line.Or so she blubbered. "I've had…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Con Clown Kellie Leitch Vows to Re-Criminalize Marijuana
Just a few days ago Kellie Leitch was blubbering about how sorry she was to have hurt Canadians with her racist barbaric cultural practices campaign.And her foul snitch line.But now she's found another way to hurt Canadians.And send even more of…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Late Remorse of the Con Barbarian Kellie Leitch
I'll never forget this picture of Kellie Leitch taken during the last election, shortly after she launched her Barbaric Cultural Practices campaign.And about the time she realized what a monstrous thing she had done. And what a terrible mistake she…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why the Con Leadership Race is Turning Into a Nightmare
The Con leadership race was always going to be a spectacle only a mad emperor like Caligula or Stephen Harper could enjoy.Especially since it was revealed that some Cons are so desperate they're thinking of bringing back Harper, to try to keep the…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Con Circus and the Return of Stephen Harper
As you probably know, the Con leadership race is slowly warming up, and the orthopaedic surgeon Kellie Leith has become the first to throw her cap, or a leg, into the ring Former cabinet minister Kellie Leitch has become the first official candida…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Lest We Forget
The Star’s Tim Harper reports that Kellie Leitch, one of the robotic but very malleable mainstays of the former Harper regime, has become the first declared candidate for the Conservative Party’s leadership.I hope no one forgets her appearance with Imm…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Kellie Leitch and the Foul Cowardice of the Cons
I realize Kellie Leitch is frustrated. A few weeks ago she had to be told to cool her jets by other Cons.Because she was apparently getting ready to announce her candidacy for permanent leader of the Harperless party, at least a year before the leade…
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Mulcair and Trudeau bring “Change” and “Real Change” to Edmonton this week
In a competition to own the “change” message, the NDP are holding a “Rally for Change in Edmonton” on Sept 10 and the Liberals are holding a “Rally for Real Change in Edmonton” on September 9. It is clear that both parties have identified varying degrees “change” as a common
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Harper government plans to criminalize Canadian Pacific Railway workers’ strike
The Harper government plans to introduce back-to-work legislation Monday afternoon to force 3,300 Canadian Pacific Railway workers to return to work. The post Harper government plans to criminalize Canadian Pacific Railway workers’ strike appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Violence Against Women: Why We All Need to Look in the Mirror
I'm ashamed to admit that when the stories about the ghastly harassment of women in this country began to emerge, first at the CBC and then on Parliament Hill, I was shocked and horrified.But because I'm a gay guy, and I've never harassed anyone let alone a woman, and sex for me means love
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